'THE PAST IS ANOTHER COUNTRY."
July 16th
day after my 61st birthday
in the year of our Lord
2017.
And with a flick
of a switch
Big Ben strikes
half past ten
but in the July
of 1890.
The Past is
present again.
I wash up a cup
as Trumpeter Landfried
sounds the charge
as he did at Balaclava
as if 1854 had never
faded away.
And now the kettle boils
Earl Grey in a blue and yellow cup.
Florence Nightingale enters and
interrupts, with:
"When I am...no longer..."
she says so quietly
inserting a pause
like a book mark in her voice
then deigns to go on
again.
"...even a memory...just
a name..."
I sip my tea
as Lord Alfred recites
in a heavy pendulous voice
"The Charge of the Light Brigade"
thanks to Mr. Edison's
brown wax cylinders
as they bring back the Past
even with a trace of
fungus upon it
to live another day
and Florence's voice
once under glass
steps out of the museum
into the newly fashioned
light of 2017
blinking
here she is again:
"...I hope my voice may
perpetuate
the great work of
my life."
Just then the phone
rings and I
tumble back into
the here
and now.
In 1890 it was found that many survivors of the famous Charge were destitute and it caused a minor political scandal. A Light Brigade Fund was set up and so Tennyson, Miss Nightingale and Trumpeter Martin Landfried were all brought in and plonked in front of this new fangled invention...some kind of talking machine and urged to recite, speak and blow so that monies come be raised for the brave few who fought the foe. And so comes to be that just on the cusp of voices being recorded we can the long-dead-never-thought-to-be-heard manifest themselves before us and speak to us as John Lennon once said: "This is John speaking to you in his own voice!" Or as Prime Minister Gladstone once put in back in the scratchy old days of 1888 "...to receive the record of my voice..."
The full transcript of the Nightingale recording says: 'When I am no longer even a memory, just a name, I hope my voice may perpetuate the great work of my life. God bless my dear old comrades of Balaclava and bring them safe to shore. Florence Nightingale.' In fact, two versions of this recording exist the second has slightly altered wording to the first, which was presumably a practice session.
And Martin Lanfrie's text is thus:
‘I am Trumpeter Lanfried. One of the surviving trumpeters of the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava. I am now going to sound the bugle that was sounded at Waterloo, and sound the charge as was sounded at Balaclava on that very same bugle… on the 25th of October, 1854.’
The Tennyson I think you may know!
There is also a recording of Robert Browning reading in 1889...the year of his death in Venice.
It was recorded in a dinner party given by Browning's friend the artist Rudolf Lehmann, on May 6th, 1889.
Colonel Gouraud, the sales manager of Edison Talking machine, had brought with him a phonograph and each of the guests was invited to speak into it. Initially reluctant, Browning eventually relents and can be heard reciting from his poem 'How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix'. Unfortunately, he forgets the words after a few lines, tries again and then gives up, but can be heard expressing his astonishment at this "wonderful invention".
"I'm terribly sorry but I can't remember me own verses...but one thing I will remember all my life is the astonishing moment by your wonderful invention. Robert Browning!"
They all give him a few hurrahs all the same!
Although the recording is very inaudible, it is still worth to hear one of the greatest poet of Victorian era.